The Raffinatti boutique took its conceptual inspiration from the folding and unfolding of the garment. First, a horizontal pliage holds the main garment area and its changing rooms. The second, a vertical intervention holds the second garment area as well as the service point of this high end shop.

The general impact is one of purity. A myriad of whites is used to climate different uses. In fact the serviced and principal circulation is in a glossy finish that allows for a reflection of the user. On the opposite side, the principal shopping area collects a more mat and architectural feel in order to soften the clothing of this line that caters to the female genre.

The garments are suspended on sculptural and airy structures leaving the floor of this 600 square foot space empty of any clutter.

Architectural computation is generally promoted in relation to high-tech building systems and iconic towers. Earl’s Gourmet Grub is a test case in how computational architecture can enrich everyday use. The restaurant was designed with contemporary technology to fit an old-world sensibility inspired by its food. Torquing ceiling surfaces and inscribed digital patterns are combined with a rich material and color palette to evoke both technological refinement and the more rustic feel of alpine landscapes and Viennese cafes.

Earl’s is an artisanal deli and gourmet market that opened in May 2010 in Los Angeles. The 1000sf. tenant improvement is conceived of as an interior landscape; a variable and shifting space defined by a series of torqued ceiling surfaces and light ’scoops’. The ceiling creates an airy, light-filled canopy with local intensities modulated by wood ‘baffles’ of oscillating depth. These rhythmic undulations both subdivide the linear space into a series of spatial pockets and produce dynamic spatial continuity from front to back.

The clients, Yvonne McDonald and Dean Harada, requested a contemporary architectural identity but one that evoked the rustic or alpine qualities of the fresh ingredients used in the food. The west wall, which spans the entire depth of the space, is embossed with an image of the Alps abstracted as a series of rectangular computational ‘bits’. The result – alpine picturesque run through a computational filter – evokes neither pure landscape nor pure technology, opening up a wider range of associations.

Japanese architect Makoto Yamaguchihas completed a hair salon in the basement of a Tokyo building, showcasing the patchwork of alterations made by previous occupants of the space. Called kilico., the project involved patching the floor to make it flat and coating the various textures of the walls with white paint. The hair salon is located Daikanyama, one of Tokyo’s trendiest areas.

Some more information from the architect:

Even though the interior layout had basically remained the same, there were many traces left behind by previous occupants on the floor and walls – a flat mortar wall next to an unfinished concrete block wall, and a whole host of dents and depressions of various sizes in the coarse concrete floor. We decided to leave these textural details intact and incorporate them into the design for the new salon, so we painted the walls over in white and filled the depressions of various sizes with mortar.

Looking at the white wall that extends downwards from the ceiling until the floor, for example, you can see an entire gradient of different textures. The surface of a concrete block gradually changes into a surface riddled with holes that probably appeared when it was dismantled, which then segues into a panel with a completely flat and even finish, ending up as a fairly flat surface at the very bottom. After we had filled the depressions in the floor with mortar in order to make it flat, a map-like pattern emerged – what we call a “time map”.

The design of ‘kilico.’ is based on these vestiges of past “time” – traces of previous incarnations of this building that have been given a new lease of life.

A lighting project for a wine bar/restaurant having a substructure of wooden arched beams cutting through a wire mesh covering the ceiling. The setting of the space underneath the substructure is functionally divided into two sections: a bar area and a dining area.

Highlighting the dual function, the lighting objects are set on two parallel axes over these two sections. Suspended from the arcs, each light object is a set of conical tubes conceived to fill a circular-shaped area. Clustering in the circle, the tubes start at the center; moving radially, they begin to deviate at an angle of 25 degrees to reach an angle of 45 degrees. This deviation renders a chandelier-like object, with a bottom curved outline opposite to that of the ceiling.

The cluster of the tubes housing the bulbs creates an effect of a singular light source being filtered.

The entrance is lit by a set of black projectors also using the arched beams for fixation; the groove in the beams encloses the technical parts box, while the head of the projector is left loose to rotate shedding light in different directions.

Scala Vinoteca is a Spanish-style wine bar with over 100 bottles to choose from, paired with fresh food from recipes across the Mediterranean sea. This fashionable restaurant was designed by Kokkinou – Kourkoulas Architects, with a focus on minimal sensibility but plenty of culture and attitude.

With a strong resemblance to Spanish vineries, they gave the place a simple character and strong attitude through the use of simple materials such as wood and aluminum. But the leading role here is for the fiberglass shell chairs by Eames.

The combination of the spatial-anorexia, emphasized with the narrowness of the perspective, and the transparency of the full operable clear panel glass facade, swallow the eyes of the passerby.

New York studio Volido have completed the interiors for a fashion store in New York that’s intended to look like a fashion runway. Called Eva Fashion Store, the store claims to be the most exclusive home for emerging international fashion designers in New York.

Once upon a time, in an old Chinese Grocery store in the lower Manhattan, Max Sanjulian, principal of Volido, designed what claims to be the most exclusive home for emerging international fashion designers in New York. Viviane Westwood Anglomania, Henrik Vibskov, C.Neon and TV among others in its racks… the space is EVA.

Volido, running away from the traditional approach to fashion-retail space, choose Fast, Cheap and Smart as positive qualities inherent to the best contemporary designs. With the Fashion Industry, highly monopolized by corporates, this attitude seems to be the way to go in order to survive independently in places like Manhattan, Tokyo, London or Paris.

The Fluorescent tube-lit hybrid space is now conceived to combine fashion sales, temporary art exhibits and events in a very long and narrow lot. Economy of movements with long and straight lines are framing the clothing and articulating the indoor seating areas at the same time.

The combination of the spatial-anorexia, emphasized with the narrowness of the perspective, and the transparency of the full operable clear panel glass facade, swallow the eyes of the passerby. The store front emphasizes this effect with the dissolution of the limits between interior and exterior offering an outdoor-indoor-seating-stage area that has already become a hang out point for the regular downtown fashionistas.

“One big curve expands obliquely into the inside considering the view from a street in front and the movement line and another gentle curve of the ceiling links in three dimensions.”

Koichi Futatsumata of CASE REALdesigned this boutique that is located in Fukuoka, Japan. The store was designed for the Japanse retailer Alohanine and features a very minimalist and clean interior.

First, I analyzed the given environment (the arrangement of the construction to the front street and the site). Then, I thought that the space construction should be intelligent, mysterious and deep to lead the movement lines into the store, with a glance of people who pass the street would be naturally drawn to the store. Therefore, I used these two curves together, one is the wall curve expanding from the outside and the other one is the ceiling curve like a cave. Then I studied deliberately how to tie and organize these shapes.